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Grace "Betty" Brown, 90

Grace Elizabeth (Betty) Brown was born to Grace Scoullar Holtorf and Carl Churchill Holtorf of Sterling, Colo., Dec. 26. 1920, and died May 24, 2011, at The Legacy in Lincoln. Her father was superintendent of the Burlington Railroad, and as a young girl, Betty would board the train every Saturday to ride to Denver to take violin lessons. In 1934, the family moved to Alliance, where Betty attended high school, graduating in 1938. She attended the University of Nebraska and was initiated into Delta Gamma sorority. While at the University, she attended the 1941 Rose Bowl Game between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and the Stanford Indians, where she met Paul Brown, a fellow Nebraska student from Broken Bow. They were married Oct. 25, 1941, and moved to Broken Bow, continuing along with their family to follow Cornhusker football throughout their lives, including travels to California, Texas, Florida, and New Orleans. Like most of her generation, Betty tended the home front and their new family while Paul was serving in the U.S. Army during part of World War II. Betty was an equal partner supporting her husband Paul in his furniture business in Broken Bow and his many sports and community leadership roles. In addition to supporting her husband and raising three children, Betty's loves and activities included St. John’s Episcopal church, playing bridge, chairing drives for the March of Dimes and community concerts, bloodmobile, and the Cancer Drive, joining the founding Board of Directors of the Jennie Melham Memorial Hospital and forging many life-long friendships in Broken Bow. She was the veteran "go to" volunteer to make things happen in the Sandhills and at one time, Betty and her lifelong friend, Jeanne Williams Uren, were selling tickets for seven different organizations simultaneously. Betty was a staunch Republican, ready for every campaign, spent countless hours and tanks of gas politicking throughout central Nebraska on behalf of local, state and national candidates. She was particularly proud of her recent appointment by Governor Dave Heineman as an Admiral in The Great Navy of the State of Nebraska. Betty was preceded in death by her parents, four brothers, a sister, her husband Paul and her son, Douglas Churchill. She is survived by her daughter Polly and husband Gary Hultquist of Sonoma, Calif.; son, Frederick Stephen and wife Pam Brown of Omaha, and Gloria (Mrs. Douglas) Brown of Norfolk. Her grandchildren include Ben Brown, Natalie Brown and Lindsay Maranville of Lincoln, Paul Daniel Brown of Omaha, Katherine Hultquist and Peter Hultquist of Seattle, Wash., and Sarah Roby of Lake Forest, Calif.. Betty followed the births and activities of her great-grandchildren, River and Summit Maranville of Lincoln, Grace, Natalie and Bryn Roby of Lake Forest, and Aurora and Nicholas Cox-Hultquist of Seattle.